Saturday, December 29, 2012

This year was plagued from beginning to end
with images of Armageddon, the apocalypse and the end of the world. It began
essentially in the Micro Mutek festival
back in February and appeared and reappeared at various intervals until last
week’s poor and/or misunderstood prediction of the end of time by the ancient
Mayan civilization. Check out three end-of.the-world science videos at The Guardian.

Kicking off this feeling musically was
Lucrecia Dalt playing at Mutek to an edited Werner Herzog film of oil fields on fire
in Iraq. Her intriguing album "Commotus" followed with its beautifully poised and
intense cover image of dust storms in great depression era America. Although
she claims it has no significance to the crisis, the influence of the crisis and
its sinister Thatcher-esque methodology on Spanish culture in particular was
heavy and profound (and still looms like the picture frozen in time).
Personally, Lucrecia became and unwilling symbol of the apocalypse for this and
more: when I did a still unfinished interview with her back in July (apologies
Lucrecia) I had been told the same day that I would lose my job by the end of
the year. We were bitten intensely by mosquitoes up in the park and then I had
an attack of jealousy from my girlfriend as a result that was also another
unnecessary blow. All resolved now, except for the interview, but for me then,
it was hard to separate Lucrecia from the feeling of doom and certainly for
this and more her music carried a strong personal resonance throughout the
year.

It is somewhat ironic then that my career
did finish only days before the Mayan apocalypse was predicted, coming to an
ugly head on the 19th. I will post more ideas on this in the coming
weeks as there is a number of general issues related to science that are
important for me to express and for a broader public to begin to understand. In
looking for a music to represent this I am drawn again and again to Oppenheimer Analysis
who are one of the few artists I have encountered to deal directly with the
idea of science as a theme, and not just a symbol. Their track “Radiance” comes
to mind particularly when thinking of Armageddon.

It shouldn’t need much context in terms of
modern politics with plenty of tension between Israel and Palestine and their
neighbours that will not go unnoticed in Iran especially, and the forever
unstable Egypt, whereas the bizarre North Korean government continues to test
missiles capable of attacking invisible enemies. In the same year we also had
continuing fall-out (sic) from the nuclear disaster provoked by the Tsunami in
Japan. I noticed that Fushitsusha’s Keiji Haino was complaining about the
Japanese protestors with an anti-nuclear agenda who were still content to go
home and plug in to their electrical world afterwards. The key here is
lifestyle. We have reached, in my opinion, the point of turning back. The
future does not exist without a change in lifestyle, or a cultural recognition
of wrong and wholesale changes to the pace of living. Time to slow down.

Musically then it is possible to relate all
this anger, repression, protest, hopelessness and absurdity to the dominance of
noise in techno music this year. This is a phenomenon that had a first flutter
back in 2010 with artists like Ancient Methods, Traversable Wormhole and the
like, but seemed to grow quiet in 2011 before achieving an explosive fusion in
2012. The two defining incidents must be Dominic Fernow’s Vatican Shadow project
releasing an acclaimed album “Ornamented Walls” on Modern Love, although to
many the “September Cell” EP on Bed of Nails was perhaps even more of a
highlight. The marriage in reverse saw Sandwell District’s Juan Mendez aka
Silent Servant release his exceptional and concise “Negative Fascination” album
on Fernow’s own Hospital Productions label.

That many of the artists pushing such a
harder and more industrial sound should be UK artists is also curious and
deserves attention in the year that also saw the final death of Throbbing
Gristle. Highlights from the UK scene are clearly Shifted, who combined
elegance with brute force, AnD from Manchester, Blawan for crudity and Pariah
for balance (his remix of Lucy on the recent Curle single is as sublime as the
original). One cannot also forget Ren Schofield’s second untitled album for
Spectrum Spools as Container. 2012 also saw the return of the British Murder
Boys (Surgeon and Regis) as well as the most vocal praise for the Birmingham
Downwards imprint, completing the cycle that Sandwell District initiated many
years ago. Speaking of Sandwell District, while many of their offspring went
harder and harder, many also continued to adopt and develop, while others
merely imitated their sound. While many of the influenced artists produced
great albums, like Spanish producer Oscar Mulero, there were many more that
faded into the background while not necessarily being bad. It is also worth
mentioning that US art rockers The Swans seem to have exerted a particularly
profound influence over both guitar and electronic music over the last 18
months. One reason is the growing fame of their live show which works off
noise, power and transformation, similar ingredients to the success of good
psychedelic techno, whereas their noisy and lengthy album “The Seer” carries a
similar torch of inspiration to the noise-techno artists. A critical aspect of
their image and performance is the idea that Michael Gira is also some sort of
shaman, or indeed, has taken the Seer role of the album name. This is a concept
that was lightly flirted with in techno as well, particularly on the Prologue
label with Dino Sabatini being most obvious, whereas Voices from the Lake
clearly aimed for and achieved a trance state of mind. African rhythms and magic
also snuck their way into fringes of other releases from Cut Hands“Black mamba”,
Demdike Stare, Shackleton, Emptyset, Innervisions (last year as well) and
perhaps even Juju and Jordash’s “Techno primitivism”.

Industrial and noise music has always
somehow been the political arm of electronic music, particularly to techno as house
has always had a proximity to protest, just as it has its side far removed in
the realms of triviality. It is tempting to interpret this rise in
noise/industrial techno as a parallel to the ascendance of the protest movement
(Time’s Person of the year 2011) and the dissatisfaction with the current
political system and the political class. However, the dancefloor and a party
are still not the best places to have intellectual discussions and even the
idea of this incites scorn in many people whereas others still complain that
clubs are for escapism and not confrontation. But the absence of an intelligent
dance floor is a hell too frightening to consider: just listen to Teengirl
Fantasy’s “Do it” with vocals by Romanthony released on R&S this year and
you will be in that bad place.

The groups name should tell you all you
need to know, but the cringey and vacuous autotuned lyrics could be Black Eyed
Peas or Rebecca Black they are as bad as the plodding and comfortable music.
Besides, if I am unemployed and lucky enough to afford entry into a club, I do
not want to escape my life by listening to something as trivial as that. I
would rather some positive reinforcement in hearing noise and industrial
techno, turning the machines against themselves and against society for its own
good.

A less social association of this trend may
also be in the improvements to sound design across the board and the
possibilities that noise, force and silence have to play in the listening
experience. Bedroom studio production has now reached an important and perhaps
critical level of quality. While there is still a plethora of by-the-numbers
producers, who still seem to top all the charts, there has clearly been an
exponential growth in quality and diversity of production stimulated at first
by dubstep and now in the post-dubstep era where genres blur more than ever, it
informs all fields and genres of production. While not considered industrial or
noise, the work of Rene Pawlowitz is certainly only one step away. The bigger
numbers off “The Killer” like “Ride on” and “I come by night” are a case in
point, gruff, granular and forceful.

Many other artists have also created their
own sound world where high fidelity and texture is just as important as volume
or functionality. The success of Ricardo Villalobos’s “Dependent and Happy”
across the board, from Resident Advisor to The Wire is the most obvious example
(remember last year they also had Margaret Dygas’s under-appreciated album as
well, also from Perlon). Still close to the dancefloor, Andy Stott and Claro
Intelecto made plenty of space by slowing things down a lot whereas It is also
interesting to note that many albums making the top of the best of lists are
fairly experimental as well as packing good sound design, suggesting that (a)
the critics are ahead of the game or that (b) the audience has finally caught
up (more on this point below). Actress is well known now, but he still stands
apart from so many for his vivid imagination. Raime as well as Emptyset can
feel like very dry music at times, and yet their appeal seems fairly universal.
Plenty of other artists made an impact without hitting the lists: Ricardo
Donoso’s second electronic album rightly caused a bit of fever on its release,
whereas Bee Mask must be poised for greater things too. Australian Oren
Ambarchi seemed everywhere in 2012 and many of his releases have become
essential and on occasion left me reeling with surprise at their invention and
execution, the long track “Knots” on “Audience for one” on Touch being a
particular delight. Another man who seemed everywhere and anywhere in 2012 was
Mark Fell, who just played an amazing night here in Barcelona with Lee Gamble
who, alongside his colleagues in the PAN label, seemed to somehow reinvent
electronica late on in the year. Fell in particular pushed the boundaries of
experimentation and the dancefloor like no other and will hopefully have a show
of his own soon on Cabeza de Vaca.

We also have heard over the last year or
two about how Mike Dehnert and others have forced people to consider upgrading
their Hi Fi set up in car or home to get the most out of their music. Ben Klockalso stated recently
that DJing can be hit and miss for some artists depending on the capacity of
the sound system and requires an open mind to tailor the set accordingly and to
tease out the best frequencies. Many artists also still make music and tailor
their sound for the legendary Berghain sound system,
amongst them the aforementioned duo AnD. Given this, and after seeing the
aforementioned Fell/Gamble show and still feeling the positive effects of the
LEV Festival this year it seems more and more clear that club culture is at a juncture.
While volume is essential and while it is also true that many artists do not
strictly need high fidelity, there is a nagging sense that sound systems in
clubs are becoming incredibly inadequate. One reason is their apparent and
alleged lack of sensitivity and directionality for reproducing such beautifully
constructed and intricate music in a special manner. The other is space and
architecture. Electronic music still feels obliged to exist in the club
setting, but somehow a club feels like a ball and chain as well. Where are the
venues for ambient music? Why does the club have to always be a party at night
time and not earlier or during the day (at least for older people like me?) Why
are there no high fidelity listening places for concerts and even “reproduction
parties” for new releases, for example? Listening to music live is about
sensation and experience, not only hedonism. Why is it not possible to invent a
Hi Fi Lounge where people would pay to go and hear a new album, for example, in
all its stereo glory at volume as well as a live show?

This brings us to the next concept which is
the live performance in electronic music. Two issues came to the fore in 2012,
one an old one and a never ending one it seems, which is the issue of playing
live versus pressing play. Back in June Deadmau5 made the allegation in Rolling Stone that
many artists are pressing play and there is less live performance in electronic
music than appears. This may be true for some and more so for those who involve
the use of complicated visual elements in their shows, like Amon Tobin,
Squarepusher etc who require complicated synchronization to make the show work.
Indeed, this brings us to the second point which is the tendency for over
reliance on a visual element to make an impact as a live electronic show. Sure,
there is nothing worse than watching a person hunched over a laptop during a
performance, but there is something not right about seeing an artist swamped by
an overblown and over conceptualized set up. My thoughts go to Tom Jenkinson
aka Squarepusher who had his huge banks of LEDs and his custom designed helmet
at Sonar to accompany his neo-rave IDM, but a paltry audience, who were all
sadly at Fatboy Slim, a mere DJ with no special live show, or indeed music, at
all. Intriguingly, the best live show of all at Sonar this year was Mouse on
Mars who clearly do not press play, jamming on stage as a three piece and even
changing instruments. They use only a minimal, but effective visual display.
The LEV Festival clearly aims to fuse the visual and audio elements of electronic
music with as much an artistic approach as they can allow and can afford. Yet
there appears to be a tendency, perhaps growing, for the visual to trivialize
the music or at least supersede it in importance. 2013 could be a critical year
for this phenomenon in which it may arrive at one step too far or become
inseparable forever. The subtext of this is a growing divide between the
classic club and the festival, where the former can work just as effectively
with a red light in a room whereas the later seems to depend on visual
spectacle.

A parallel element this year has been the
return of the real vocalist. The impact of Burial over the last few years has
been profound, but his trope of the pitch shifted and cut-up vocal had reached
epidemic proportions in recent times and now feels hideously overdone (Holy
Other’s album had one foot in this trap while also somehow managing to break
free of it). Thankfully then, 2012 saw the predominance of real singing.
Highlights were Cooly G’s sensual album “Playing Me” and her astute and
captivating performance at Sonar. Laurel Halo’s “Quarantine” album seemed to
finish in all the lists. While it didn’t quite do it for me as much as the rest
of the world, its sung vocals were nonetheless an important touchstone of the
year. Jessie Ware was a personal favourite for her voice but also for the sheer
surprise I had in myself for finding so much in music that on surface I should
not be so close to. The myriad of excellent remixes also helped to cement
“Devotion” as stand out for the year. There was also Brackles, Julia Holter, Nina
Kraviz album with guests, San Proper going it alone with mixed results on
“Animal”, Lucrecia Dalt (of course; I say her here as well since I think she
would be a great collaborator for a dance project too) and more.

Looking through the best of lists in the
different media sites it seems clear that there is almost a consensus as to
what was the best in 2012. Furthermore, if you scroll through the comments
lists you also get the sense that the public agrees, with a certain exception
(see below). First thought would be to say that these were indeed the best
albums of 2012, but perhaps the consensus also comes down to the fact that they
were in many ways the only good albums of 2012. This is harsh and a bit of an
over statement, but it did feel that this year took a long, long time to get
going and then it all seemed to get exciting in a flurry at the end of the
year. The albums making the list are also hardly ground breaking in many ways,
although good, and there were also plenty of decent, but not amazing albums by
big artists. I am thinking of Redshape, Christopher Rau (I would also add
Smallpeople although they did end up on the proper lists), Tinman, Emeralds, Forward Strategy Group (great in moments, but a
little stilted at times), Holy Other, Juju and Jordash (intriguing and worth
going back to, but somehow unfulfilling or a bit clumsy at times), Sigha and
Scuba amongst others. One noticeable trend was the absent of many real (or
should I say classical) dubstep albums in the final lists with the exception of
perhaps Jam City. Peter van Hoesen’s “Perceiver” is a good example of a totally
cohesive and well-made album that really doesn’t add much more to the
IDM-styled techno that has been prevalent for the last two years or so. The
Prologue label stuff seemed a breakthrough this year as it combined home
listening depth as well as dancefloor functionality without sounding like this
IDM-techno or post-Sandwell District techno. Similarly, PAN really caught the
imagination by reconciling complex experimentation with the compelling urge to
listen. Their emphasis as well on collector records and design was also
fundamental. As an aside, there was a modest trend for picture discs to emerge
as well, with the CLR label doing it for the Motor releases and also the
Deepchord“Summer night versions EP”.

L.I.E.S. was by far the best label for
quantity and quality. Their importance as well comes from breaking Rush Hour’s
stranglehold over the retro house sound, now moved from Chicago to New Jersey.
Using the same palette they somehow broke through to the other side and in the
process expanded their A&R remit to dislodge the label from any simple
classification. Just look at Torn Hawk’s filthy space rock sound or Professor
Genius’s hashish inspired ambient album “Hassan” to see how far the label has
gone. It is also worth mentioning how much of this stuff sounds like "hipster house" and gets closer again to the dirtier, lo fi sounds of the Not Not Fun underground. The caveat of this is that judging by the comments pages, many listeners
were strangely unaware of many of these labels even until the end. This is
perhaps no surprise looking at what charts and what DJs made the top of the
list suggesting that there is a great divide between critical acclaim and the
real audience.

In short, 2012 was not the vintage year that
2011 was and saw more a stabilization of current trends than important
advances. Predictions for 2013: I predicted the return of drum n bass this year
and was almost right. Certainly it returned to the consciousness, but still
lacked a really big cross over album or single. Lee Gamble’s “Diversions
1994-1996” was probably the closest. But the trend will continue and drum n
bass to keep making a bigger impact in 2013. I also predict a big increase in
the number of Asian producers influencing the scene next year. Resident Advisor
has been in Japan since 2011, but it might be time to see some rewards from
that connection. Techno will continue to get louder, faster and harder on one
side, but on the other will develop into a more elaborate, long-form electro
style as the continued influence of the Drexciya reissues becomes consciously apparent
while the urge to copy the Sandwell District style diminishes (see Delta
Funktionen and the recent Killekill label compilation for the first steps). House
music will pursue the New Jersey garage line, but take up Mark Fell’s cut up
vocal line style and angular melody structure from the Sensate Focus series to
another level, like Huxley and Bicep gone hypercolour (sic) and hyper
geometric.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

The new program
is now fully ready at the revamped Scanner FM! A pretty light-hearted
show this week for Christmas in order to have something of a breather as well
as to have an excuse to collect together some of those artists who use
modifications of celebrity names. More of them out and perhaps we will do it
again for 2013?

Next show will
probably be a limited wrap-up of 2012 in terms of concepts rather than a best-of.
Why? Well will never fit all the best of in 60 minutes (and now we have strict
time orders as well) and there is still a few tracks that might make it to a best-off
that are still to come and that way I can avoid a bit of content repetition.

Hopefully there
will be a few more normal posts in the weeks to come as well as I take some
holidays and change jobs and life rhythm.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all and
lets hope 2013 shows some improvements.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

We didn’t play
much dubstep or bass music so far on Cabeza de Vaca, but this weeks mind blowing show on Scanner FM is almost all that, albeit on the fringes somehow.
This is really the problem with the “genre”: trying to locate a centre now is
impossible. Indeed, this is what makes it so intriguing if impossible to keep
up with. I got lost somewhere around the time when footwork came in. Indeed, it
is the power of different electronic styles to draw from each other like the
cloning monster in The Thing that makes them so interesting. But while all
genres borrow and change parts, it is arguably bass music that is the most
dynamic and hence the most formless since it has less functional and stylistic pressure
in many ways. Techno, for example, borrows heavily, but must always remain
rooted in 4-4 and retain its modular flexibility to keep the mix from falling
apart or showing too many joins. Bass music is the equivalent of a four wheel
drive all-terrain vehicle: adaptation to environment, palette and BPMs is
essential.

It is perhaps
this reason that we also end up playing drum n bass. The original idea was to
finish with Bass Clef, but somehow the lure of drum n bass got too strong,
especially after hearing the promise of Lee Gamble’s EP on PAN which is more evocative
than representative. One curiosity of this release is that it seems to be
almost a rememberance or memorial. It acknowledges the existence of drum n bass
as a ghost, suggesting that it is truly dead. Not entirely true of course, but
fascinating. Nobody seems to be invoking the ghosts of Chicago house or Detroit
techno, for example. But jungle…

As for the 7even
Reecordings label, I was under several misconceptions before starting out my research based
on failing memory most likely. I was under the impression that the label was
run by Florent Aupetit out of Toulouse, but it seems to have always been the
dominion of Greg G from Nantes and now in Tokyo. Aupetit under the artist name
F has certainly been responsible for some of the labels signature moments, but
their early days in the dub techno influenced wave of dubstep are given rise to
more diverse possibilities. Russian producer Oceania (who I assumed was a woman
from the cover picture of his EP) brings a more James Blake-ian balladry,
Makoto keeps a foot in the drum n bass camp whereas up-and-coming Japanese
producer brings something different altogether. Except for the absence of real
footwork or UK funky styles, 7even is pretty representative of the diversity of
current bass music and its ongoing potential.

For more details
on the label and history check out a recent interview and mix (including some
unreleased tracks) at Inverted Audio.

As promised, new
technology should be available at Scanner FM within a week or two to increase
your listening experience.

Dont forget to
check out the other electronic music shows on Scanner FM, that amongst others
include Feedback, Störung Radio and more.

Information
about the massive and cheap Electronic Explorations compilation can be found here. With regards to the discussion on the market value and colectibility of vinyl records it is worth reading the discussion for the vinyl release of four tracks from this collection by clicking here.

Also we make an
announcement for two pending shows.

The first is by
the L’ull Cec promoters and will feature Lee Gamble, EVOL, Mark Fell and Yutaka
Makino in Barcelona on the 22nd December. More details here.

The first announcement for the L.E.V. Festival
for 2013 has also been made and as always looks interesting. Two videos have
also been published with highlights of the 2012 line-up.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

A whole program
of Cabeza de Vaca on
Scanner FM dedicated to the music of Rene Pawlowitz!

Pawlowitz is
from Schwedt in the former GDR right on the border with Poland and spent at
least some time living in Frankfurt Oder, a larger town slightly to the south of
Schwedt (and not Frankfurt am Main on the west side). He doesn’t always give a
lot away biographically, but his formative years seem spent acquiring the usual
influences from the main stream (Pet Shop Boys) until being old enough to attend
raves in the relatively near-by Berlin. It is probably his term working at Hard
Wax that left the biggest mark on him and the shops focus as a communal hub as
well as a record store comes across strongly in interviews. In the show, the
last two tracks I play re named in homage to the store.

Pawlowitz
started out releasing on his own Soloaction Records in 2004 before a
breakthrough single on Delsin set him well on the way.

He claims that
the name Shed comes from the phrase “Shedding the Past” although the album
would not appear until 2008. He would also go on to use STP for Shedding the
Past as a further name. However, the term “Shed” used like a snake shedding a
skin is clearly something that he had in mind when adopting the name and one
that works in his favour having employed so many monikers. One aspect of techno
anonymity has also been the white label or the hand stamped 12” in a white
paper bag as a way of hiding artist identity. Another is to employ so many
names that the listener (or critic) does not know who the real artist is. I also like the interpreatation that Shed couldrefer to a shed like a workshop, like where my father repairs things for his farm or builds something to help him go fishing. Shed tracks are often like little inventions with moving parts, but sometimes a little clunky.

Indeed, Pawlowitz
has masked himself in public by adopting a vast array of alternative names and
on the show we play one track from each of them as a way to compare and
contrast. There is not always a lot of difference in sound between the different
names, perhaps Equalized is a lot smoother-sounding, The short-lived Panamax
Project is clearly more dubstep, although dubstep also heavily marks the sound
of Shed. It is in then curious to hear him say a line like this:

“These things
like Wax or EQD — there is no artist behind it. It’s only tracks for the dance
floor. That’s all. There is no artist behind.”

One does get the
feeling sometimes that Pawlowitz does not want to be considered an artist
almost. It is not a mantle of responsibility that he seems comfortable living
with somehow.

One thing that
is particular to the Pawlowitz aesthetic, however, is the balance between the
drums and the synths. The rhythm section is generally always high in the mix
and cut quite roughly, and almost rigidly without much elasticity between the
parts. The percussion doesn’t move like a complicated machine or a watch, but
it moves with heavy and calculated force almost in stop-motion fashion. The
roughness imparts a sense of stoniness, of a literal underground or cavernous
sound decorated with hints of metal, but metal is not always the dominant
sensation and the stone feeling is organic and elemental and dismisses any desire
to label the music as industrial. The synths used are generally abstract, infrequently
employing overt melodies or pop techniques, though there are exceptions such as
“Rave (dirt mix)” by Head High. Most of the sense of movement is carried in
these sounds, however small or angular, despite carrying little emotional
information. Their fluidity at times only emphasizes the sense of stasis in the
heavier percussion and their respective balance in the mix further exaggerates
the tension between the parts. A necessity to produce this type of sound design
is the breakbeat. If Pawlowitz had been a conventional 4-4 techno producer, a
lot of this tension and stasis would not exist (look no further than the
opening track “Sweep dreams” for example). Pawlowitz expresses more love for
dubstep in interviews than he does for techno which makes it something of a surprise
then that his dubstep identity Panamax Project is arguably his least successful
and one of his least used. In any case, all the Shed albums are heavily
populated with breakbeat tracks.

One of the key
concepts when talking about Pawlowitz is also his approach to what an album is.
The best place to start is the text quoted on the back of “The Traveller” album
from 2010.

“Does techno
music really need the concept of the album format? Let’s put it differently:
can techno work outside the established boundaries of the 12”? A look back into
the history shows little convincing examples. Dancefloor tracks, made for DJs,
follow a structure which requires a damn perfect dancefloor in your living room
in order to adequately absorb that energy. A good album must offer more than a
couple of dancefloor anthems, mixed with some ambient interludes and the
obligatory downbeat experiment, has to be more substantial than a paint-box for
your euphoric memories of perfect nights long gone.”TH

I am not sure
who TH is although I read that the text was also included in the press release
for the album. Whether this was the press releases quoting the album or vice
versa is unclear, but it is also possible then that TH is someone from Ostgut
Ton. In any case, the issue raised is whether an album is more complete being
stuck together with ambient interludes and a downbeat track and whether this
somehow makes it more artistically sound. It is true that there was a time when
every electronic album had on it a track called “Intro” and “Outro”, something
you don’t see so often now. But the question about “The Traveller” and “The
Killer” is whether they do really form cohesive albums or not, or whether that
is the point. With “The Traveller” it is much easier to understand the album by
taking each track as a point of departure and a point of destination, since
their extremeness and their often dissimilarity makes it difficult for them to
flow together in some instances. “The Killer” is less extreme, but not always
more cohesive in its final totality. Judging success here is tricky. There are
plenty of good pop-rock album’s that are just great collections of tracks that
do not necessarily form a concept, so why can’t an electronic album be the
same? Of course the greatest albums are those that usually tell a story and
work like a novel from beginning to end and offering somewhere a turning point
or a moment of transition.

“Shedding the
Past” is an altogether other problem of interpretation. As I mention at the
beginning of the show, the vinyl and CD versions are vastly different. Not only
is the number of tracks different, but the tracks they contain are not the same
and in different order. Reviewing the album, which one would you take? When
referring to the album should we specify which one we mean? The notion of a
changeable album is not unique to Pawlowitz, but given the above quote about
the album format in techno music, it is something that he obviously does not
take lightly.

But should an
album be changeable? It is impossible to imagine “Sgt Peppers” working in a
different way, but “Rubber Soul”, how much does it really matter in the way
that the songs go together? There are many reasons why an album could change in
this day and age. A generation has now grown up with CDs and skipping tracks,
whereas almost every other format of art now offers the choice of versions.
Films have director’s cuts and even books appear with new and definitive texts.
William Burroughs is a key example of this not only for his and Brion Gysin’s cut up
method which is fundamental to this idea, but that many of his books have
appeared in multiple versions as new parts are discovered or as Burroughs
changed the text through desire. An interesting counterpoint is perhaps painting.
I am not aware of any panting that has been systematically or occasionally modified
in time once presented to give it new meaning.

A minor sub point
of the changeable album idea is format and running order. Quite often the
definitive running order is on the CD as opposed to vinyl versions as vinyl
will often cut out tracks, such as on the recent Shifted album, something I
referred to in the ambient show a few weeks back. This is frustrating, but
obviously an artefact of the physical limitations of vinyl. The running order
is also often different which has as much to do with the sound characteristics
of the grooves which changes from the outside to the inside as any Masterer
will tell you. I personally like the fixed idea of an album as a work of art,
as something takes on a configuration of its own and acts almost as a symbol of
an artist and his time. But perhaps this is the point of Pawlowitz and his
album work: the times they are a changing.

It is also worth referring briefly to some Pawlowitz collaborations and aliases that I didnt play in the show. There is obviously Deuce which he dd with Marcel Dettmann.

There is also the collaboration with Modeselector and Marcell Dettmann called A.T.O.L who had their debut at the Melt Festival, but have so far not released anything.

There are two new names that appeared on Pawlowitz's Discogs page even as I preparedthis show, one which is Zigg Gonzaless/Sigg Gonzalez which links to a track just on Ben Klock's Fabric mix (not to be confused with Ziggy Gonzalez who is another artist) and released on Belgian label H2, whereas War Made Easy appears to be a new alias that accompanies a new 12" on the War Easy Made label.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Latest Cabeza de Vaca show at Scanner FMfocuses
on some new house tracks and the Mathematics label. By coincidence, Resident
Advisor published an RA Exchange with
Hieroglyphic Being on the same day! Most of my information has come from the
web or the interview in the Wire from late last year, so will be interesting to
see what new stuff comes out of that. It was of course them wh published a few
confused reviews of Mathematics stuff recently, making it sound wonderful and
then scathing it with a pithy score. It seemed funny as a lot of weird stuff
like Oni Ayhun, Kassem Mosse and some of the L.I.E.S. stuff can be pretty weird
too, but seems to be highly regarded. In any case, some of the label’s output
is quite conventional like Andrea Gehm’s recent 12” which was decent but unremarkable
in many ways.

The Spanish text
read (and written?) by Alex Rufí can be viewed on his blog

Track list is
below and more information at Scanner FM of course.

Always looking for promos and new material so don’t
forget to send anything if you think you could have some of your music on the
show.Suppor Scanner FM